


Freak Show

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 05:52:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12292659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A couple of short stories based off the titles of the songs from the album Freak Show by Silverchair. Fic abandoned.





	1. Freak

**Author's Note:**

> This is a writing exercise for me. Basically, I always thought the song titles of Freak Show sounded like a story about a guy in a BDSM relationship that goes wrong. That's not what I'm writing about but the idea is what sparked the idea to write stories based off the titles.
> 
> This chapter is about high school history teacher Mr. Bellamy and his student a certain John Murphy.

_body and soul I'm a freak I'm a freak_

 

A private Catholic school had never been Bellamy's first choice. In fact, he had envisioned himself as one of those inspirational, overworked teachers employed by an inner city public school district. One of those teachers who had no personal life of which to speak of but was devoted wholly to changing and expanding the mind of his poor, underprivileged students. Sacrificing. Saint-like.

Instead he's stuck in a school that actually teaches about the saints.

He just had never imagined he'd find himself seated in such a position at a plush, overly grandiose private facility with sprawling grounds and an honest to goodness polo team. No, not water polo, polo polo. Like the type with horses.

Needless to say, his students come from good families. The tuition at this place is extravagant. And most of the students excel at the state testing. They don't need his help. Hell, they probably don't even really need teachers. Video lectures would be enough to teach most of these kids but that wouldn't get them into the ivy leagues. They've been tutored and quizzed on SAT vocab and scheduled to within a minute of every hour of every day for their entire lives. They are deferent to their elders and cruel to the less fortunate or different.

A Catholic school, a private school, a school full of snobby rich kids, none of that had been his first choice. But he doesn't have much of a choice. This is only his third year of teaching, times are tough. You take what you can get. At least he had been raised Catholic by his Filipino mother. Some of her customs had been different than ordinary American Catholicism but he had been baptized and knew the basic scripture. The fact he had been able to pull off a flawless Eucharist is probably what nailed him this job.

Still, part of him wants to be that saint, not just walk past their sculptures every day near the entrance. Francis. Christopher. Sebastian. Bellamy.

But he wasn't a saint. He doesn't get a chance to practice his divine mercy and compassion.

And that's probably why Murphy had caught his eye last year.

Murphy is a special case.

John Murphy is not a straight A student. He is not rich. He comes from a rich family but his father had been cut off from the family fortune when he had married a woman they had not approved of.

Bellamy does't know the specifics but he heard the rumors in the teacher's lounge. On his deathbed, supposedly, the boy's grandfather had a sudden case of remorse and had responded by dropping a hefty sum towards the four year tuition fees of his then twelve-year-old grandson at one of the best schools in the state. Maybe if the old geezer had ever actually met his grandson he wouldn't have bothered wasting the money.

Murphy is...interesting. He caught Bellamy's eye the first day he walked into his first period tenth grade world history class because he had blue hair and an eyebrow ring.

Bellamy wondered how he even made it that far.

The next day the eyebrow ring was gone and the boy's hair was dyed a deep black that seemed unnatural. As if they had just went with the darkest, yet most natural, color they could find to just cover up the atrocity of individuality.

Over the next nine months, he had witnessed the return of the boy's natural hair color. Not black, but a decently dark shade of brown.

About January, Bellamy had decided to describe it as a “dark chocolate” shade. Deep and rich but not quite totally bitter. Maybe at about 85% cocoa.

This year, on the first day of school, Murphy had shown up at his third period tenth grade history class with pink hair and a lip ring.

“Ah, we're going to try this again are we, Mr. Murphy?” he had greeted the boy, with a friendly clap on the shoulder.

To which the boy had responded, “I just couldn't stop myself from spending another year in your class, Mr. Blake.”

Murphy was an outcast. The other boys didn't taunt him exactly, not to his face anyway, but they didn't invite him to join them. He didn't look like them. He was smaller, messier. Weirder. His hair always seemed uncombed, as if he had just rolled out of bed and walked to class. His uniform was never at the school standards. His shirt was untucked, the shoes bright neon green instead of black, his tie too loose or removed all together. He had a habit of “forgetting” to bring his jacket and would often roll up his sleeves, showing off his pale arms and the brightly colored tattoo of a tropical fish on the inside of his right arm, just a couple inches above his wrist. He had that sort of translucent skin where the deep orange and vibrant teal practically glowed.

Bellamy had heard one of the other kids ask him once, why a fish? What was the significance? He had wondered that himself a few times. He had imagined something a little less flamboyant. A skull or the Led Zeppelin logo. Something stereotypical like that.

“Place by my house was doing them for free,” he had shrugged at the time. “Let them pick what they put on you and you don't have to pay for it.”

The idea of taking something just because it was free was absurd to this crowd of spoiled trust fund babies. Bellamy got it though. He had survived on various club meetings while in college, hopping from free cheese pizza at the Poetry Club to rainbow popcorn at the Gay and Straight Alliance. It had been a cool way to meet people but also, free food. He would've starved his sophomore year without access to free food.

At another school Murphy's casual, unperturbed attitude about the tattoo might have earned him some respect. He might have been seen as cool. So “don't give a shit” in his image that boys would see him as badass and girls would see him as hot. Not here. Here he was seen as stupid.

Bellamy found the tattoo admirable, himself. He wished he had been so carefree in his own youth. He had wasted too many of his best years striving for perfect grades and training for too many soccer games and volunteering for too many charities. All for the sake of a two page college application.

It was in the spring that the incident happened.

School has already been out for an hour when Bellamy stumbled upon him. It wasn't unheard of for kids to still be roaming the school at that hour. The sports teams and art clubs and trivia squads were still around, practicing and whatnot.

But what did seem was weird finding somebody in the organic garden at the back of the property.

The organic garden was part of the health class. None of these boys would probably touch a speck of dirt again for the rest of their lives once they graduated but the school council had decided that a little “manual labor” would be good for them, train them how to take care of themselves, learn how the other half lives. There was also some bullshit summary about “being one with nature” in the class summary in the school handbook.

It was tended by the crunchy health teacher and her various students throughout the day and since health class was mandatory for graduation, all the students at one point or another had to take care of that garden. That said, there were plenty of hands to see to its needs during normal school hours, so there was really no reason for anybody to be in there in the late afternoon. What could they be doing now that they couldn't have done earlier? Stepping on a sudden legion of snails trying to devour the cucumbers? Live bongo drum performances for the tomatoes?

Bellamy has no idea what organic gardening consists of.

The only reason he even knows of its existence is because it's directly across from the flower garden. And in the middle of the flower garden is a giant maple tree with a solid wooden bench beneath it which happens to be the best place in the entire school to eat your lunch alone while reading a good book.

As far as he is aware, the flower garden is not cared for by the health class kids. It's much too lush and overgrown to be organic. The roses too satin. The marigolds too bright. Bellamy appreciates that. It's much more bug-free than the organic garden. He doesn't like being in that one. It makes him itch. He swears if you walk within ten feet of it you're attacked by buzzing insect who want nothing more than to fly into your ears and drive you insane.

No, he's not on the way to the organic garden that day. He was taking some essays to his bench because he wasn't ready to go home to his cramp, dark little apartment. Not when spring is just beginning to get warm and he could be outside in the sun with the smell of jasmine surrounding him. He can grade essays on a bench just as well, or nearly as well anyway, as he could at home.

But as a teacher, when he sees the intruder in the garden he has no choice but to investigate.

Murphy. Of course it's Murphy. He likes Murphy, he really does. He's like a stray puppy. A bit dirty, a bit feral, but cute and needing some affection. Makes you want to rub his tummy and give him a treat. Good thing he likes him too, because it's starting to look like he'll have him for tenth grade world history for a third year soon.

The garden has a thick stone fence around it, sure evidence that this is indeed a private school. A public school garden would probably just be a couple feet of scraggly corn plants boxed in by some chicken wire. At first he doesn't see what the boy is doing. He can't see. The fence, while not excessively tall, is partially blocking him and Murphy is only visible about his neck and up. He sees the tie flung over his shoulder. His shirt collar is unbuttoned and his clavicle seems prominent.

When Bellamy walks around the corner and catches the boy with his pants down he is startled to say the least.

He catches a glimpse of something. Something shiny, that glints in the sun. Then Murphy sees him and is hurrying to pull up his pants. But he's been caught, red handed. Or white-bottomed, rather.

Bellamy reacts on instinct.

“Murphy!” he barks out, “Were you urinating on the organic cabbages?”

He's still struggling to get his pants done back up. His shirt is stuck in his zipper and he's pulling at it uselessly. He gives up and looks up at the teacher.

“Would you believe me if I said no?” He doesn't sound scared. Not even defiant, just a bit amused.

“I saw you,” Bellamy points out. Obviously. The boy can't even get his pants fixed, it's not like he made a clean break.

“Then why bother asking in the first place?”

“Is there a reason you're desecrating Ms. Laude's cabbages?”

“I'm gardening,” he lies easily, smoothly, a smirk on his face. “It keeps the bugs away. Sterilizes them too. Urine is sterile, right?”

Bellamy drags him back to his room. Tells him to sit at the front desk in the exact middle of the room.

He could just give the boy detention.

But he wants to help him. He needs to help him. This is the sort of boy he went to school so he could eventually help.

“So,” the teen drawls. “How are you going to punish me? Suspension? Good old ruler to the palm? For a Catholic school you don't seem to do much of that here.”

“Are you kidding me?” Bellamy snorts. “Imagine how the parents would react if their precious little trophies wrote home about that.”

Murphy laughs. It comes out big and sudden. “I didn't know teachers could make jokes.”

“Only on full moons,” Bellamy says evasively. “I don't know how I'm going to punish you, to be truthful. I'm still sort of new at this myself.”

“You could just let me go,” Murphy suggests, smiling slyly, teeth showing just a bit. He has nice enough teeth. White, even, but not perfect. There's a slight overlap on one of the bottom ones and a small gap on the opposite side. It's charming. Any other kid here would've had braces slapped onto him years ago to fix it.

“I don't think so. That'd be unfair to Ms. Laude, don't you agree?”

“No,” Murphy shrugs. “She called me a freak in the middle of class. She deserves it.”

“She called you a freak?” Bellamy asks, with clear doubt in his voice, because that really doesn't sound like the woman he knows. She's a vegan, anti-GMO, anti-vax, overall an airhead. But not outright mean.

“Well, she was going off on one of her anti-chemical spiels, and I commented about how chemicals are great because you can use them to turn your hair green when you decide to go live with your plant brethren. Then she went off on me, screeching about how 'unnatural' that is and asked if I wanted to look like a freak with pink hair.”

“Hmm,” Bellamy takes a seat behind his desk and opens the drawer on the right to rummage around for the lemon drops he keeps in there. His mouth feels dry and he feels like sucking on something. “The pink hair was a bold choice. The blue suited you better. What were you doing last summer that pink had seemed like a good idea?”

“Wouldn't you like to know.”

“Well, I asked. So yeah, I do.”

Murphy rolls his eyes and slides further down into his seat. The student desks are large, nicer, than ones Bellamy himself had been blessed with at his shitty public school. But the ones in his school had been carved with various comics and comments. They had been individualistic, entertaining.

“I was cage dancing.”

“Excuse me?”  
“Cage dancing, at this gay club by my house. I don't stay in the dorms all summer, you know? I go back home to LA. I know the owner of this place. Not too seedy. He lets me make some cash on weekdays in the summer by cage dancing. Not on the weekends though, he says the place gets too rowdy then. It's just for tips but, well, not all of us were born with a diamond encrusted spoon in our mouth.”

Okay, that was not what Bellamy had been imagining. He had been imagining Murphy spending the summer with a bunch of hoodlums, probably smoking pot and posting stupid videos of themselves doing stupid dares on YouTube or something like that. And the kid is fucking sixteen!

“You're a bit young to be an exotic dancer,” he says, uncomfortable with the subject.

“Not exotic,” Murphy objects, “Cage. It's different. You don't take your clothes of. Wait, let me show you.” Murphy pulls his phone out of his pocket. An Android, not the most up-to-date iPhone like every other boy in this damn school. He plays with it for a second, his thumb moving in a familiar scrolling pattern. Then he turns it around and shows it to Bellamy.

A picture of Murphy in, well, a cage. Dressed in only a pair of tight silver hot pants made of some shiny material. Lycra? Spandex? His body shimmers with a layer of glitter, his hot pink hair falling over his eyes. His hands are thrown over his head, showing his shaven armpits, and he looks ecstatic. There's a few green bills shoved into the band of the shorts.

Bellamy coughs, stiffly, and asks him to put it away.

“I guess I am a freak,” Murphy mutters, his voice dropping.

“Don't say that,” Bellamy commands. “There's nothing wrong with being a little different. It's just that you're my student and it's not exactly appropriate for me to see you in that sort of setting. But you're free to do as you wish when you're not in school.”

“Whatever. Can I go now?”

Bellamy glances down at his watch. Realizes how late it is. He needs to get home soon. Hit the gym and make dinner.

“Yes. But be here immediately after school's end tomorrow. I don't want to send you to detention when I could have you here learning instead.”

 

Bellamy can't get the image of those little hot pants out of his mind. There was just something so entrancing about them. The way they hugged Murphy's slim hips. How they accentuated the slenderness of his body while giving parts of it, his stomach, his upper thighs, a certain softness.

He's sixteen years old. He shouldn't be thinking of him like this.

He thinks of Murphy walking into class wearing them but he shows up at third period in his uniform as usual. Jacket unbuttoned, collar too loose, but close enough to appropriate. He sits at his usual seat in the back left corner and falls asleep with his head on his desk.

When Murphy actually shows up five minutes after the last bell ring, Bellamy is legitimately surprised. He had been doubting his ability to obey orders and had assumed he would probably end up just assigning him detention.

But no. He's here. His shirt is untucked. His jacket is missing, probably stowed away in his locker. And he's removing the confining blue striped tie around his neck as he enters. But most of him has made it here.

“Hey,” he greets him, as if they're friends meeting up for a coffee.

“Please sit down and remove a piece of paper.”

He does as told. Bellamy has to direct him to also remove a pen, as if that wasn't implied.

“Now I'm not sure if you heard this, as you were asleep in my class, but I assigned your final paper today. To pick one ancient civilization you learned about this year and write a five page paper telling me what you found most interesting about them.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard it. You can't yell at me for not having handed it yet. You just told us about it.”

“I can yell at you for last year's. If I recall, the one you handed in last year was one line long and read simply, 'The Greeks were the coolest because they had pederasty.'”

“You told us it was opinion based and there was no wrong answer.”

“I also told you to write five pages. Do you want to graduate from this school, Mr. Murphy?”

“No. Not particularly.” Murphy admitted. “I'm a better dancer than student.”

“Maybe if you tried you'd surprise yourself. This paper is thirty percent of your entire grade. If you get an A on it, you'll pass my class this year. Barely.”

“Ah, Mr. Blake,” Murphy fakes hurt. “You don't want to see me again next year?”

“I teach eleventh grade world history as well, I'd rather see you there. We're going to start your outline. And then I want to see you here every Wednesday for the next month to see how your paper is going.”

“Seriously?” Murphy has the gall to act offended. “You're going to give me a month worth of detentions for taking a piss on some moldy old cabbages?”  
“I'm giving you five tutoring sessions out of the goodness of my heart. Stop complaining and start working on your outline.”

Murphy makes a long suffering sigh, as if Bellamy had been forcing him to write a paper on the philosophy of self determination for the past five hours. And he hasn't even written a single word yet.

And he doesn't. He sits there, looking down at his paper, not lifting a finger, for a solid five minutes.

“You can start anytime here, Murphy.”

“Why don't we learn about the Celts?”

“What?” The question surprises Bellamy. That seems so out of place for him. Too scholarly. He never asks questions that actually pertain to class. He'll ask stuff like “Mr. Blake, what did you eat for breakfast?” or “Why does the boy's bathroom smell like cinnamon?” But stuff about class?

“It's not in the curriculum.” He explains. “There's not enough time to teach everything.”

“I'm Irish, you know.”

“Yes, I assumed so from your name.”

“Well, I always thought it'd be cool to learn more about the Irish. Did you know my name means 'sea warrior'?”

“No, I did not.”

“John just means like, gracious, or something boring like that. It's why I started going by my last name. Like, a sea warrior? Like a viking? That's way cooler.” Murphy actually looks excited about that idea. There's something in his eyes. Something besides his normal shade of bored.

“Vikings were Swedish, not Irish,” Bellamy points out to him, not wanting to disappoint him but knowing that deep down, he's a teacher, he can't let that inaccuracy pass.

“Yeah, yeah. Same thing,” Murphy waves off the correction, apparently not caring. “Except shorter because Swedes are like, seven feet tall. But I mean, I can't write about the Irish because we barely touched them. All we learned about was the Romans taking them over, and then the British taking them over.”

“I'd love to teach you all about the Celts. Ireland has a rich literary history and we've learned a lot about western Europe from it. But it's simply not part of the curriculum.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I'd pay attention for once if it was in there.” The teen gripes, making a disgusted face as if somebody had just offered him a bite of organic cabbage.

“You should pay attention because you need to graduate so you can go to a good college.”

“I don't care what college I go to,” Murphy says, the sudden interest in his voice gone like that. “The Will doesn't specify which college I go to, just that I go for four years.”

“The Will?”  
“My grandfather's,” Murphy explains. “I get a hundred thousand big ones the day I receive my college diploma. But only if I graduate from this stupid school.”

“I see. Well, you're not going to graduate without passing my class. So pick a society.”

Bellamy gets him to write about the Greeks again.

“But nothing about pederasty this time,” he instructs. “They use these final papers to grade my performance as well and I don't need them thinking that's the kind of stuff I teach you.”

 

Murphy works on his paper between their meetings. Not as much as Bellamy would like him too, maybe only a page a week, but it's better than nothing. On their final meeting, the teen hands him a printed out paper of what they've already gone over dozens of times.

It's his rough draft. Not complete, but well on the way. Bellamy will hand it back to him in class, once he's had a chance to go through and mark it up.

He pages through it as Murphy sits there, watching him, tapping his pen on the desk. He doesn't have to read it thoroughly, he's read most of it before. But paragraphs have been switched around. Ideas refined. The spelling isn't great but it's no longer atrocious.

“I think you're close to your A here, Mr. Murphy,” he concedes, flipping the papers back into order.

Murphy signs in relief. Flashes a smile.

“Do you really think so?”

“As long as you take my comments seriously when I return it to you, yeah. I think you're going to pass this year, by the skin of your teeth.”

“That's pretty close,” Murphy says, voice going mischievous. “Maybe we should do something about that?”

“Hmm?” Bellamy hums. He looks up and sees the teen watching him with a calculated look. Murphy licks his lips.

“Maybe some extra credit?”

“I already assigned extra credit at the beginning of the year,” he pointed out. “The etymology journal?” Murphy slips out of his desk and walks closer to his own desk and there's something strange about his movement. It's more fluid than normal. Less slouchy and lazy. “It's too late for you to start that now.”

“Come on,” Murphy teases and now he's standing in front of Bellamy. “I'm sure there's something else you could want me to do for you.”

The flirting isn't lost on Bellamy. He stopped thinking of Murphy as a kid the moment he saw him in those haunting little silver shorts. But he hadn't thought Murphy would actually go for it. Not really. Murphy is sort of an eccentric but he's not a bad kid.

The boy drops to his knees in front of him and looks up at Bellamy, those light eyes shining through locks of dark hair. Asking for permission.

And fuck he's pretty. He had been trying so hard not to look at him like that. He's only a couple months short of seventeen, not the absolute youngest, but still underage. Still his student.

But he's so fucking pretty. That flawless skin, those haunting eyes. Those cupid bow lips. The ones that are just slightly parted as he reaches for Bellamy's zipper.

He lets him. Just glances over at the door to make sure it's tightly closed.

“I knew you liked me,” Murphy grins up at him. The teen reaches in for what he wants. His hands feel cold and clammy. “You're already half hard.”

“I can't actually give you extra credit for this,” Bellamy breathes. “It wouldn't look fair in my grading book, if somebody checked.”

“Just make sure I get an A on the paper then,” Murphy says, casually, as if he's not palming Bellamy's hardening cock.

“You'll get an A without doing this.”

“I want to do this,” he insists.

His mouth is hot and wet and feels even better around him than Bellamy had imagined. Bellamy threads his fingers through the boy's hair, not holding him there, but just holding him. The hair is silky soft and flows between his fingers like water.

Murphy makes happy little whimpering sounds. He's like a kitten nursing from its mother. Bellamy looks down and sees Murphy has already undone his own pants and is fisting himself and there it is, that glint of metal he had seen how many weeks ago in the garden? He had always suspected but it had been so brief.

Murphy has a cockring.

What deranged pervert pierces a sixteen-year-old's penis?

What deranged pervert lets one put his mouth on his penis?

He closes his eyes and leans back against the back of his chair. From this angle he is able to thrust up into the teen's mouth. Slowly. Gently. He doesn't want to hurt him.

He swallows dick like a champ and Bellamy doesn't want to think about that. About what Murphy might do behind the club once he's done dancing for the night.

The boy gags. He feels his throat spasm around him. He pulls of, taking a breath, wiping at his mouth. It's wet with spit and tears. Not from crying but because they sprung up when he had gagged. A natural reaction.

Bellamy wipes them off his face with his own thumb and then bends down to kiss the boy. He tastes hot and like arousal. He doesn't taste himself on him though. He's never been one to produce much pre-cum.

Murphy goes back down. Swallows him again, then pulls back to lick at the shaft. The hand between his legs is moving faster now and Bellamy knows he must be close.

He entwines his fingers more thoroughly around the soft hair at the back of Murphy's head and pulls him down. Gently. Guiding, not forcing. Keeps him there as he thrusts up quicker, more urgently. Murphy takes him. Takes it. Watching how the boy's throat moves as he swallows his cum is almost better than the actual orgasm.

The teen lays his cheek against Bellamy's thigh as he continues to jerk himself off. Bellamy strokes his hair, the side of his face, his eyelids. Murphy makes a gasp before he comes. Soft, endearing.

“Let me take you out for dinner,” Bellamy offers once they're both able to speak. “Anywhere you want.”

“Would you call me a freak if I asked you to take me home and cook for me?”

“I'd never call you a freak,” Bellamy promises.


	2. Pop Song For Us Rejects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia drags Bellamy to a concert he's not particularly interested in when he runs into a cute boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I'm not doing these songs in order of the album. Also, Flogging Molly always performs their St. Patrick's shows nearl LA. And they're fun as hell. This one feels like cheating.

_Consuming alcohol_  
_While I gotta drive_  
_Take a hit from the drugs you stole_  
_And try to survive_

 

Bellamy didn't know why he let his sister drag him to this thing. Flogging Molly? Like, he gets it's St. Patrick's Day, and they're half-Irish and everything, but God. Celtic Punk? How is that even a genre? Besides, his father was Filipino and hers Greek. Neither of them look Irish among this group of redheaded and blond Angelenos. They stand out like a couple of sore thumbs. And Jasper? As far as Bellamy was aware he didn't even have a drop of Celtic blood in him.

“I'm just a fan of punk music,” the lanky teen yells over the roar of the crowd as Bellamy points that out.

And beer. Bellamy is absolutely certain Jasper is also a fan of beer. He's on his third oversized Guinness for the night which is ridiculous because the boy is 17, he shouldn't even be able to get his hands on a beer in this place. Neither should Octavia, for that matter. But they keep finding suckers willing to purchase the beverages for them, just batting their big brown eyes and smiling flirtatiously.

As the adult here, Bellamy refuses to buy them alcohol but he won't be that guy who takes away their drinks either.

He's still nursing his own overpriced IPA by the time the second opening band for the evening is wrapping up. Octavia and Jasper are, well, they're not going to be feeling good in the morning. They're screaming and jumping up against each other and giggling like school children. Which they are, technically, both three months away from their high school graduations. Bellamy excuses himself to get a second drink before the main show starts.

Fuck it. He doesn't want to be a spoil sport. He buys a Guinness.

Bellamy is a beer snob. He likes stouts. He goes to a lot of breweries and he has had his share of stouts. Milk stouts. Coffee stouts. Chocolate stouts. Smoked stouts. Sweet stouts. Bitter stouts. Creamy stouts. Nitro. Bottled. Canned. And this? This is pathetic. Watery, flavorless.

And it kind of hits the spot. It's really too hot in this screaming, jumping crowd of people to drink something that heavy. The Guinness goes down easy.

Octavia and Jasper are making out when he gets back to his seat. He's not naive enough to think they've never fucked but geez. They're friends, not a couple, and he doesn't need to see his sister like this. He “accidentally” bumps into her as he takes his seat next to her.

“Finally!” Octavia hollers, spotting the Guinness in his hand. Then she reaches around her own neck and pulls off a couple of the dozen or so green beaded necklaces she's wearing. She drapes them around his neck, decorating him like he's a Christmas tree. He fingers the beads between his middle finger and his thumb, looking at the beads. They're shaped like shamrocks. She and Jasper are wearing matching “Irish I Were Drunk” t-shirts, spiked green bracelets, and sparkly green tiaras. Bellamy had been proud of himself for just wearing a green shirt.

At least their seats are decent. They're not near the mosh pit. Bellamy favors more calm music personally. Coldplay. Counting Crows. R.E.M. He couldn't imagine being in a mosh pit at a punk show. He's happy to be set farther back. Not quite in the nose bleed section, but close. They're in the the first row of the seats in the last section of the theater, nobody sitting directly in front of them. Instead there's a walkway directly before them, about ten feet down from their seats. A main entrance and exit for the concert hall. Separating them from the ten food drop was a solid cement wall about three feet tall, perfect for putting your feet up on.

Or in Octavia's case, perfect for leaning over and shouting come ons at random guys over.

Bellamy laid back, feet up, and sipped at his beer as he waited. Really, this wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday night.

And okay, the band is actually pretty good, once they hit the stage. Upbeat. High energy. The crowd is pumping. Again, a little louder, a little more aggressive than he normally prefers. But not bad.

He recognizes _Drunken Lullabies_. The local breweries have been playing it on repeat for the last couple weeks. He taps his feet along to it, but stays where he is, even as Octavia and Jasper jump and wave their fists in the air and scream along to the lyrics. He's perfectly happy being a calm observer.

“Why couldn't you just listen to shitty pop like every other little sister in the world?” he yells to Octavia as the band introduces another song. “I could've taken you to see One Direction.”

“You're such a pussy,” she yells back at him, reaching over to mess up his curls. “This _is_ pop music for rejects like us.” Then she tries to pull him up to jump along to a song called _Rebels of the Sacred Heart_. He stands, but just bobs his head along to the music, despite her attempts to get him into it. Jasper leans over her to hug him and Bellamy laughs because Jasper is a hilarious and affectionate drunk.

It's during _What's Left of the Flag_ that that steal the boy.

And really, that's the only word for us. They steal him.

During the entire concert Octavia has been taking advantage of their seating. She's hit on dozens of guys, complimented the outfits or hair or makeup of countless girls, and high-fived anybody willing to return her outstretched palm.

And then the group of three boys march by. There's two of them on bottom and they're walking shoulder to shoulder, pumping their opposite fists in the air. On their adjoining shoulders sits a teenage boy. Sixteen? Seventeen? Maybe a college freshman. Not old enough for the beer he's holding in one hand, that's for sure.

Octavia leans over to high five him and he returns it, overly enthusiastically. So overly enthusiastically that he lurches forward and for a second Bellamy feels his breath catch because he's waiting for this boy to tumble head over and feet and crack his skull on the floor directly beneath them.

But that doesn't happen. Octavia catches him by the wrist and somehow his scrawny little sister is supporting this boy in the air as his friends look confused, spinning around trying to figure out what just happened. The boy's beer has dropped from his hand and lays spilled out on the ground beneath them.

Better than the boy's brains.

Then Jasper is bending over the wall, grabbing for the other boy's wrist. And really, it's not that long a drop, they could just lower him and let him land on his feet.

Instead they pull him up over the wall. He scrambles over it, feet pressed against the cement grasping for traction. He tumbles over the wall, landing on his back. And then he's on his feet and he leans over the wall, screaming and waving at his friends who are cheering him on.

Bellamy looks around, panicking. Waiting for security to appear and drag off the intruder.

But nobody seems to have seen it.

He's pretty certain his sister has never met this boy before but they seem to be best friends. He's decked out for the holiday as much as she is. The same beads, the same bracelets. He's wearing a stereotypical “Kiss Me I'm Irish” shirt and no tiara but his hair is green. Well, partly. He did a pretty shitty job at spraying some sort of green temporary hair dye on it anyway. He wedges himself in between Octavia and Jasper and they all jump along to the song, laughing and waving their arms in the air.

The song ends and they scream in appreciation. The next song is quieter. Bellamy doesn't recognize it. Jasper bobs his head along to the music but Octavia turns to the boy to introduce herself and then asks what his shirt says. The boy moves his beads aside so she can read it.

“Kiss me, I'm Irish,” she squints at the words. “Okay.” She slings her arms around the teen and pulls him in for a kiss. He laughs and smiles through the kiss.

“Jasper,” she calls drunkenly, “Look at, uh, what's his name's shirt.”

“Murphy,” the boy says, “My name's Murphy.”

Jasper reads the boy's shirt and then those two kiss as well and Bellamy just wonders how the hell does he share genes with his sister when Jasper seems like he'd make a much better sibling for her. He was never this carefree and spontaneous when he was their age. It must be her father. Filipinos just sing karaoke and play party games. It's that damn Greek blood.

“Bellamy,” Octavia yells, her eyes suddenly lighting up. “Look at Murphy's shirt!”

“I saw it,” he says, taking a small step away from them.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Murphy turns to him, greets him. “I didn't realize you were with them.”

“I'm doing my best not to be.”

Murphy laughs at that and takes a couple steps closer to him. And in this close a space a couple steps is right against him.

“Come on freckles, dance with me.”

Dance? To this music? In this tight a space? There might not be anybody in front of them but there are people directly to the right and left of him.

The boy gabs Bellamy's arms and slip them around himself, pressing his back against Bellamy's chest and stomach. He's damp with sweat and smells like beer and pot.

But he feels good in his arms.

The slow song playing works for this. Murphy is holding Bellamy by the wrists, forcing him to hold him, and that gives Bellamy the chance to shake off his embarrassment over the situation. Let's him relent and allow the boy to lead them into a peaceful sway.

Octavia is giggling beside him. He looks over the boy's head, shoots her a glare. She covers her mouth and saddles up next to Jasper, pulling him into a similar position. He can't help but laugh because Jasper is tall. He towers over all three of them. Jasper wiggles back against her, shaking his head back in a faux-sexy movement and grinds against her in a humorous attempt at sensuality.

Bellamy rolls his eyes and looks down at the boy in his arms. He's only a couple inches shorter than himself but scrawny. He fits comfortably in his arms. Almost too comfortably. Almost like he belongs there. Murphy tosses his head back, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and Bellamy takes the chance to inhale the smell of his hair. Sweat, shampoo, the artificial smell of the dye.

He feels like when he's an old man, remembering the best moments of his life, the ones he should've had more of while he was young, that he'll remember that smell.

“Oh my God,” the boy screams out suddenly as the opening beats to the next song start up. Bellamy hadn't even heard the other song come to an end. “ _Requiem For A Dying Song_! This one is my favorite!”

He releases the boy reluctantly. Three beats in and he knows this song isn't a slow one. He might not recognize it but it's definitely another high energy, jump along song.

Murphy isn't lying. He really knows this song. From the opening lyrics of “There's a government whip cracked across your back!” he's screaming the lyrics along with the singer and jumping and pumping his fist in the air.

But what gets Octavia's attention is that Bellamy is jumping and waving his fist in the air too. Because the boy is making him. When he realizes Bellamy is just going to stand there he grabs the older man by the wrist and waves his hand in the air beside his own, giving him no choice but to jump along or have his arm ripped out of his socket.

Well, okay, the boy is pretty scrawny. He could probably just pull his arm back.

But he doesn't because he's enjoying this. This is fun. He hasn't been able to get into this evening like his sister and her friend because there's always that cloud of self consciousness that looms over him in these settings. He's never been one on big emotional displays. He never screamed or danced or jumped along at concerts. He was always more a “bob your head along to the beat” sort of person. Maybe tapping a foot here and there if he really got into it.

But now he's jumping along. And Murphy is jumping along beside him. And Murphy's arm is around his waist and they're not quite chest to chest but close enough, angled towards each other in a way that Bellamy is watching the boy's lips way more than the singer's.

Murphy's singing along passionately. Badly, but passionately. Throwing his full emotion into every word.

“With the sun that lights the day! Brings the darkness and the prize!” The boy pumps his fist exceptionally hard at the last word for each line. “Of another great shame!” His hair falls in his eyes again, a weird combination of green and auburn that should clash but just goes so well with the boy's exuberance. “But with you my love, with you my lo-”

He doesn't finish the line because Bellamy kisses him. And the boy's fist falls from the air as he grabs the sides of Bellamy's head and returns the kiss. And this isn't like when the beautiful boy had kissed Octavia and Jasper. There's tongue and spit and the taste of pot when Bellamy hasn't even smoked hookah since he was in living in the dorms.

It's good.

Then the boy pulls away and it's like nothing happened because then he's screaming and jumping again and picking the song up mid-lyric. “Grab the barrel by the face! Shoot the order, release!”

They kiss again repeatedly throughout the next two songs. And Bellamy swears every time is better than the last. The boy is handsy. He grabs Bellamy by the hips. Slips his hand up the back of his shirt, or the front. Slings his arms around his neck. Bellamy has never met anybody who just likes to touch so much.

And then there's screaming from below and Murphy looks down to see his two friends from earlier, hollering up at him, demanding he return to their assigned seats with them.

“Shit, I forgot about him,” he admits. “I gotta go.”

“Yeah, I suppose you should,” Bellamy relents, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.

“Yeah,” the boy does not hide his own disappointment. “Here, give me your phone.”

“My phone?”

  
“So I can put my number in your contacts.”

Oh. That sounds. That sounds wonderful. Bellamy hands over his iPhone and Murphy squints at it, looking confused. Must be an Android user. He finds what he's looking for and Bellamy watches him, not able to see what he is doing, just watching him squint his eyes in concentration.

Then the boy takes out his own phone, looks at it, shows Bellamy the screen. A message is popped up. He recognizes his own number on top. The message reads “ _Hey its drjnj u frm thay hot guy eith th frckles phone_.”

“Got it,” he confirms, grinning. “Don't ghost me, k?”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

Murphy kisses him one more time. It's their longest one yet. But there's something calmer about it. A parting more than a passionate make out session. Bellamy barely notices the flash from the side.

“See you,” he departs and Bellamy is shocked when he just jumps over the wall into the waiting arms of his friends.

The rest of the show is much less exciting, but there's only two songs left. By the end his head is aching and he's ready to get home and down a coupe ibuprofen with one of his coconut waters in the fridge and his the sack.

He's driving, of course. That was the only reason Octavia dragged him along. He drops Jasper off at his place and Octavia off at their mom's. Then he drives the six blocks over to his own economy apartment, unlocks the door, and greets Spot, his Maine Coon.

He's brushing his teeth, opting for skipping the shower for the night, when his phone buzzes. Clenching the toothbrush in his teeth he grabs it and glances at the message.

It's a picture of himself mid-kiss with a boy with red and green hair like a Christmas tree.

Beneath it are the words “ _Up for brunch tomorrow?_ ”

He grins as he takes his phone to bed with him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just an update: I started a fic for Slave and nearly finished Abuse Me but I just felt like I kept writing Murphy OOC and wasn't happy with it. That's why I chose to abandon this endeavor. I think happy Murphy is just hard for me to keep in character and I don't want to keep posting trash.


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